Vader's Problem
by The Dark Scribbler
Summary: The Sith have a new enemy - but at least Vader's got new robes.
1. Vader and the nonSith socks

I'd like to dedicate this story to my girlfriend and muse, Kathleen. This wee story - or rather the idea behind it - first arrived in my head a few weeks ago when we went shopping in a Sainsburys supermarket in North London where we saw a Darth Vader voice changer helmet, along with a vibrating lightabre, for sale. Several minutes later I had to drag her away before we both wet ourselves laughing. This is a mad offshoot. Enjoy.

* * *

The view from the window was impressive. To one side a massive gas giant was dying, slowly being pulled apart by the gravitationalpull of its parent sun, a swollen and bloated red giant that was in the last stages of its life. Off to the other side the bulk of the galaxy could be seen, great spiral arms flung out, all crowded with star systems and various forms of life.

The observer at the window was unimpressed however. The massive figure stared out of the window of the Star Destroyer and glowered at the view, his breathing sounding harsh and mechanical as it echoed around the room.

It would have been unhelpful to say that Darth Vader was in a very bad mood. True, he'd been in a fury, for various reasons, for several decades now, going from a sullen irritation at the universe to a massive black-edged storm of a fury, depending on circumstances. But today he was in a distinctly bad mood, the kind of mood that meant that Imperial Stormtoopers avoided him and officers of the Imperial Fleet hoped that all the news that they had to report was good.

The main cause of this mood was the ship he was standing on. His usual flagship, the Super Star Destroyer _Executor_, was in space dock at the only Kuat facility that was big enough to accommodate it, following a sudden infestation of small round furry things that purred incessantly and bred at an exponential rate. How they had got onto the ship was still a mystery, but they had brought the ship to an embarrassingly sudden halt in its pursuit of a Rebel blockade-runner when the creatures had infested the engine rooms. Thousands had been fried when they fell into the main energy couplings but as there were millions of them the drop in numbers had been temporary.

The worst thing was that they had no discernable throat to crush, making him look rather ridiculous, a Dark Lord of the Sith glowering at small fluffy purring objects.

That meant that he needed a new ship, and that had been where the problems had started. The _Avenger_ was part of the Coruscant planetary defence force these days, the _Imperious_ was off hunting Rebels in the Sluis Van system, the _Vindictive_ was also in space dock, the _Iron Fist_ had vanished on some damn secret mission and the _Irritable_ had been ambushed by a Mon Calamari cruiser and a lot of Rebel fighters, and was now several million tonnes of orbital debris around the third moon of Mantooine.

In fact, most of the fleet was dispersed hunting Rebels or off on various missions. Which left the ship he was standing on. Officially it was called the _Imperial Vengeance_. Unofficially it was called the _Imperial Flatulence_. The main reason for this was the fact that was only Star Destroyer to be built at the yards at the short-lived Imperial facility at Jaglan Beta, a base that had either been a haven for Rebel sympathizers or had been the most incompetent base in the Empire.

Nothing really worked on it. The guns had to be constantly checked for sensor degradation, the sensors couldn't detect a Hutt in orbit, the engines had a persistent habit of veering to each side that made it a positive menace in any kind of formation and the shields were more for show than combat. As for the tractor beam, it had almost towed in an asteroid instead of a blockade-runner several times. And that was just the external systems.

The internal ones were even worse. The one and only time that the Emperor had contacted him whilst he had been on this wretched vessel had resulted in a major glitch in the main holographic array that had projected an upside-down image of his Master. It had also been rather wobbly and had made him a little nauseous.

As for the rest… The lighting in his room occasionally wavered, the artificial gravity on at least one of the upper levels was less than 100 and it was fortunate that he was no longer able to ingest solid food, because the toilet system had certain peculiarities that would have made a Hutt that had really let itself go and become deeply unhygienic, even by their revolting standards, throw up. The damn ship was a space going testament to the Rebel saying that a Star Destroyer was a hundred thousand systems malfunctions just waiting to happen.

The power supply was also highly unreliable, something that had contributed to his current predicament. Normally he relied on a few dedicated droids and systems to see to his Spartan needs. Fortunately his medical droid was fully functional. Unfortunately his cleaning droid had accidentally been recharging itself when a major power shunt had occurred, the resulting feedback being enough to reduce it to its component parts.

This would not have been a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the clothing cleaning facility in his rooms had fallen victim to the same power shunt. This was a problem as even a Dark Lord of the Sith had to change his underwear – or what passed for them – at some point. After all, black clothes didn't clean themselves and black armour needed to be polished by someone or something. For one thing black clothes picked up dust, and a dusty Dark Lord of the Sith just wasn't as terrifying and dreadful as a clean and shiny one.

Vader stirred slightly. Black had been a good colour for the Sith, ever since it had been adopted following the unfortunate dalliance by the infamous Darth Trevor with red robes, which, following a sudden downpour on Xyquine, had led to the humiliating tale of the Pink Sith.

To make matters worse the clothing replicator was also down, after bungling his angry efforts to get some replacement robes. He was wearing the results now. It was worse than humiliating, it was terrible. It was also the only clean clothing he had on him, apart from his mask, his chestplate and his third-best cloak, which had some sort of engine oil on it.

A console chirped hesitantly and he strode over to it angrily. Swiping a hand over a sensor he growled: "Yes?"

"Lord Vader," said equally hesitant voice of the new captain of the ship, "Maintenance crew three alpha has discovered the cause of the malfunction to your quarters and is repairing it now. It should be fixed in two standard hours. They are working on it as fast as they can."

Vader felt a small measure of relief. Good. "Well done, Commander," he said. "See to the repairs personally, Commander. I want nothing to hinder that crew."

"Yes Lord Vader," said the voice. The Sith glowered down at the console and turned the audio feed off. It had to be audio and not the screen. There was no way in the Empire that he was allowing anyone to see him before he had new – or clean – clothing.

He strode back to the window and glared at the planet again, the hiss-hiss of his breathing filling the room and almost making up for the fact that all he wore on his cybernetic legs was a pair of argyle socks and striped underwear.


	2. Imperial Entanglements

The idea for this thing appeared out of nowhere in my brain when Kathleen was giggling over the first chapter on Sunday. She then asked me if I was going to do anything else about the Emperor and made a few comments before asking me why I had a silly grin on my face. SoI dedicate this to her!

* * *

The shuttle emerged from the flight desk of the Super Star Destroyer, its wings folding smoothing down into place is it hung there, a white dot lost in the shadow of the two huge structures. Then it started to move forwards as the engines came on, propelling it towards the massive half-completed shape of the Second Death Star in its orbit around Endor.

As it moved, massed squadrons of TIE fighters dropped into formation around the shuttle, covering its passage to the space station with cold eyes, watching for any possible threat to the ship and its contents. Nothing could be allowed to threaten it. Not if the pilots wanted to live.

The shuttle slid into the shadow of the Death Star as it approached the equatorial docking port and slowed, its wings folding back up again as it deployed its landing gear, turning slightly to drop into the correct position in the hanger, where hundreds of motionless white figures were standing, along with technicians and fleet security officers in black and grey, as well as other, more consequential, figures.

As the landing ramp opened with a hiss of coolant and started to descend to the floor one of these motionless figures moved. Darth Vader, a menacing figure in black, dropped to one knee and bowed deeply as he felt the presence of his Master.

There was a short pause and then the clack of a cane sounded as a figure dressed in a black that seemed to leach the colour out of everything in the hanger descended from the shuttle, escorted by faceless figures in red armour and capes. The figure stepped off the ramp and walked up to the taller Sith. "Rise, my friend," hissed the Emperor.

"The Death Star will be completed on schedule, my Master," rumbled Vader deferentially.

"Excellent. And know I sense that you wish to resume your search for young Skywalk-" The Emperor broke off suddenly and glared to one side as he stopped dead in his tracks. "Vader."

"Yes, my Master?"

"What," hissed the Sith Lord as he jabbed his cane at a nearby Stormtrooper, "Is that?"

Vader looked in the direction of the cane and sighed silently. A small brown and white bundle of fluff was perched on the Stormtrooper's right shoulder. It was purring.

"According to the scientists it is a tribble, my Master."

"Yes, yes, I know what it is, I read your pathetic report about the problems that you had with them on the _Executor_. What I want to know is why that Stormtrooper has one in his possession and why you haven't strangled it with its own intestines yet."

Vader fiddled his lightsabre nervously. "They are hard to eradicate, my Master. They also breed at a great rate."

"I don't care about that, I want to know why it isn't dead."

"Blaster bolts tend to scatter their pieces my Master, and as many of them contain offspring, this leads to a larger infestation. We locate them and isolate them from any food." He cleared his throat. "They are also being used as pets and in the interests of morale I thought that-"

The Emperor glowered furiously. "I don't care!" he snapped peevishly, "I've read the reports of people making pets of the wretched things. Stormtroopers are not supposed to have pets! They are supposed to be merciless killers and enforce my rule! Pets do not enter into that! In fact if they have any spare time they are supposed to practice shooting and not spend so much time polishing their armour! People are laughing at them!" He pointed again with his stick. "Stormtrooper!"

The white armoured figure straightened to extreme attention. "My Emperor?"

The stick came down to point at a spot in front of him. "Place that fluffy abomination there. At once!" The Emperor leant on his stick and watched as the Stormtrooper reluctantly placed the tribble on the deck and returned to his place, before the Sith stepped back and raised a finger, around which white-flue tendrils of electricity were sparking. Then the hand came down again as he pondered.

"Right. Let's get this out of the way. I want everyone who possesses one of these wretched things to put it next to that one. Come on! Everyone!"

A low muttering filled the hanger as the assembled Imperial flunkies all looked at each other with some degree of embarrassment. Then a shame-faced technician pulled out a small red tribble from a belt pouch and walked forwards to place it just as reluctantly on the deck. That started off a small deluge. Five minutes later there was a purring cooing mound of tribbles and the Emperor had a first-class glower on his face. "Lord Vader?"

"Yes, my Master?"

"You too."

Vader sighed. "Yes, my Master," he said, pulling a small black tribble from the pouch hidden behind his cloak and placing it on the ground. Goodbye Fang, he thought. "My Master, it might not be-"

"Silence!" yipped the Emperor as he hobbled his way around the mound. "Great Sith, what is the Empire coming to? Pets! Useless ones at that! Fluffy, cooing things that even the Jedi would have exterminated!" He paused and glared at Vader again. "We," he said icily, "Will have words about this later. You are showing dangerous signs of sentimentality, Vader. I want you to stay up late and think up at least one dangerously implausible scheme of planetary destruction. Torture a few prisoners as well."

He turned back to the mound of tribbles. "Right," he said, rolling up his sleeves, "We'll soon eradicate this lot."

"My Master, their fur-"

"Be silent!"

"But-"

"I said be silent! Some evil henchman you are…" He spread his fingers, dark side force lightning arcing between the extended digits and gestured. The lightning struck the mound with a flash, setting off a loud collective chirp of discomfort as the tribbles reacted. Three things happened at that point. The first thing was that the fur on each tribble instantly puffed up in reaction to the electricity. The second thing was that it earthed itself instantly on the metal flooring of the hanger. The third thing was that only one person in the hanger was wearing non-insulated boots.

Vader stared at the smoking shoes that were standing in the spot where the Emperor had been standing. Then he looked up at the top of the shuttle where the smoking figure had landed. A limb occasionally twitched.

Vader couldn't help himself. Something ripped its way out of his chest, buried by years of pain and self-loathing and terrible evil and misery. Vader laughed as he reached down to pick up Fang and stroke the affronted tribble.


End file.
